Student action reduces industry influence in US medical schools

Relationships with drug companies influence the practices of medical stu- dents and healthcare professionals. To ensure that medical education remains patient-focused, the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) is calling for medical schools to establish stringent rules governing their relationships with industry. Since 2007, AMSA has been rating medical schools according to the rules they have established to mini- mise conflicts of interest. The score is based on a list of 14 criteria designed to prevent conflicts of interest, and it is used each year to rate American medical schools. The 14 criteria include gifts and meals, for example, but also pharmaceutical sales representative access to campus, industry funding of talks and presentations, and education on conflicts of interest. The 2014 AMSA scorecard showed that more than two-thirds of US med- ical schools had established excellent or robust rules governing students' relationships with industry.Their num- ber is growing from year to year, as reflected by the steady increase in the number of schools that ban pharma- ceutical reps from visiting students. In 2014, AMSA also began to score teaching hospitals, and found that two-thirds of them had implemented robust rules for avoiding conflicts of interest among their students. The AMSA scorecard is backed up by actions intended to promote stu- dent awareness of conflicts of inter- est, including an AMSA guide laying out the desired content of the conflict-of-interest curriculum.